“We do not harbor bad intentions for our neighbors. I also advise them not to escalate the situation and not to impose any restrictions. We fulfill all our obligations and will continue to fulfill them,” Putin said in televised comments.
“We do not see any need here for our relations to be strained or deteriorated. All our actions, if they occur, are only in response to some unfriendly and anti-Russian behavior,” he added.
Putin appeared on television, participating online from his residence outside Moscow, at a flag-raising ceremony on a ferry in northern Russia.
Russia and Ukraine talks
In the context, the Kremlin asked the Russians to rally around President Putin and said that what happens next in the negotiations on Ukraine will depend on Kyiv’s reaction to the talks that took place this week between the two sides.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call that certain documents had not yet been agreed with Ukraine in the talks, but that Moscow had told the Ukrainian side its view on how to end the war.
Britain: Putin is playing with fire
Earlier, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said that the Russian president was playing with fire by attacking a nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine, and demanded that he stop targeting such sites.
Ukraine said Russian forces took control of the Zaporizhia nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, after attacking it in the early hours of Friday morning, setting fire to a nearby five-storey training facility.
“We call on the Russian president in the strongest possible terms to completely stop attacking such sites,” Wallace said at a news conference during a visit to Copenhagen. “It is very dangerous.”
He continued, “It is not only a danger to Ukraine and Russia, but it is also a danger to Europe, and it is playing with fire that really goes beyond everything related to logic or necessity.”